


Fire

by a_static_world



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Genre: M/M, Past Stucky, and i love them, its 11 pm, looking so far forward for tfatws it’s given me 2020 vision ahaha, now it’s sambucky, theyre babies, this is your christmas present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:14:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21966985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_static_world/pseuds/a_static_world
Summary: Bucky had always loved the fire
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38





	Fire

Fire. So dangerous, so sharp, so  _ clean _ . It was the true equalizer; try as they may, not even the rich can stop a fire that wants to burn. 

And Bucky, he was that fire. He wanted to burn. Ever since he was sixteen, since his Pa left him in charge of his Ma and four sisters and never came back. Since he enlisted in the army, thinking the fire was behind him, safe with Steve, only to find it once again in front of him. HYDRA felt the flames licking at their fingertips and harnessed them, weaponized them. Leashed them for their own use. Now the only peace Bucky got was leaving their ashes in his wake. 

Steve’d been all water; powerful, ceaseless, raging water. Never taking a breath. Then that ocean inside Steve turned to a puddle, and Bucky all but burned it away. 

Sam was...different. Sam felt like the earth; where Steve and Bucky had been polar opposites, existing to clash, Bucky and Sam seemed to fit. The earth would never melt, never vaporize under Bucky’s heat. It relishes the flame, cracking and twisting into something new, something more beautiful than before (like where lightning strikes a beach, leaving its trace forever). 

And so Bucky burned. He raged and wept and screamed until his throat bled, and Sam was always there. To soothe, to mend. Balm on a burn, Earth over flames, not meant to quench but to cool, and when Bucky had hardened, when the bonfire burned down to a candle, they began their work. 

On the battlefield, Bucky was vicious, a wildfire honed and hardened into something deadlier, something infinitely more controlled. There was no use giving him a comm; whatever programmed, unlearnable skill he had was enough. And when it was over, when the surge of flame had again cooled to an ember, Sam would be there. Sam would be waiting (bloody and bruised, yes, but holding out his arms nonetheless). 

They would go home, and they would nurse their wounds, and they would do it again. Because while Bucky had followed the skinny kid from Brooklyn into enemy fire, he’d  _ become _ the fire for the love of his life from Harlem. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. Together they soothed, they burned, they moved fast and slow and thin and thick, doing just as many good deeds as bad. 

Steve had left him, fanning the flames. It was only right Bucky did something with them. 

Sam never pushed, when the flames threatened to swallow Bucky whole and all he needed was space to let them burn. He stepped back and allowed Bucky to breathe, to think (just him being there was enough for Bucky, the mountain under his raging bushfire). 

Sam was solid and loving and just so wholly  _ Sam _ that it made Bucky’s teeth ache, sometimes, with the meaning of it all. That there was someone who loved him, who existed not for him but  _ with _ him, it meant more to Bucky than anything else. 

So there was a reason, then, that nobody could get within two feet of Sam without a hail of gunfire raining upon them. In the case of bulletproof armor, throwing knives seemed to find even the smallest cracks and chinks, distractions just there enough to give Sam an in.

It was nothing new, this protection, but it was new that Bucky  _ wanted _ to do it. He had lost Steve so many times it became just a routine to have his six, not even questioning every time he reappeared and Bucky was expected to fall back into step. Sam never expected this (the first time they met, Bucky had tried to kill him, so it was only fair for Sam to have his own six).

But as they forged their new life, new routines, new patterns formed, like how Bucky would yell at Sam for leaving toothpaste in the sink, and how Sam always managed to know just when to take the bacon out of the pan. It was new and it was strange, certainly, but when HYDRA agents crashed their date night for the third week in a row, it was simply a matter of positioning before they fell into place.

Bucky felt right, he felt good when he burned. He burned with anger and with love and with joy and with  _ everything _ . There was everything all around him and for the first time in his life, nobody was stopping him from burning. There were no waves to meet his blaze, just a rock when he needed one, warm and solid and sure. So Bucky burned, he burned for the world he had lost and the one he lived in now, and he burned for Sam. Always for Sam. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> HI  
> I MISSED YOU ALL  
> this is bad and short and i wrote it at 11 pm on christmas ahaha  
> go sambucky


End file.
